_{image from a poster for The Two Towers film}

About the Books:

Lord of the Rings was published in 3 parts:
- Fellowship of the Ring (1954),
- The Two Towers (1954) and
- Return of the King (1955)

The story begins at Bag End in the Shire, at the home of Frodo Baggins. Frodo is a Hobbit - a small creature with hairy feet and a large appetite, not normally prone to adventuring. Frodo has a gold Ring given to him by his Uncle Bilbo, who had 'found it' after its loss by a creature called Gollum, in the course of a previous long journey recounted by JRR Tolkien in The Hobbit.

"The Silmarillion" published in 1977 after Tolkien's death is mainly concerned with the oldest matters written on Middle Earth. J.R.R. Tolkien's son, Christopher, collected and edited the stories of the first and second age of Middle Earth. It is mainly concerned with the story of the Silmarils, which determined the fate of both Elves and Men for many ages.

Favorite Quotes from the Movies:

Frodo: "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."
Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." - The Fellowship of the Ring

Aragorn: "You have some skill with a blade."
Eowyn: "The women of this land learned long ago, that those without swords can still die upon them. I fear neither death nor pain."
Aragorn: "What do you fear, my Lady?"
Eowyn: "A cage. To be kept behind bars until use and old age accept them, and all chance of valour has gone beyond recall or desire."
Aragorn: "You are a daughter of Kings, a shieldmaiden of Rohan, I do not think that will be your fate." - The Two Towers 

Favorite Passages from the Books

"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."

Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him.........
"This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise
from their quiet fields,
to shake the towers and counsels of the Great.
Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it?"

_{detail from the Council of Elrond, by Alan Lee}

Gandalf did not move.
And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard in the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last!

"Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep;for not all tears are an evil."

_{Gollum/Smeagol: the LotR's most infamous character gives you his best grimace!}

_{Fellowship of the Ring painting by The Brothers Hildebrandt}

In 1997, Lord of the Rings was voted, to the chagrin of some critics, the greatest book of the twentieth century in a poll run by major British booksellers. Despite some negative criticism, Lord of the Rings has been a steady best-seller since the first volume was published in 1954, and a campus craze in the sixties and early seventies. The extensive fantasy sections in today's bookstores, from Terry Brooks to Terry Pratchett, are all its children, as are, according to George Lucas, the Star Wars films.

With taglines such as "Fate Has Chosen Him. A Fellowship Will Protect Him. Evil Will Hunt Them" in the winter of 2001 Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy was adapted into a major motion picture by New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson.  The release of the films attracted a whole new generation of fans to Middle Earth and its fascinating inhabitants.  The films also sky rocketed the careers and formed touching relationships between actors Elijah Wood (Frodo), Sean Astin (Sam Gamgee), Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Dominic Monaghan (Merry), Billy Boyd (Pippin), John Rhys-Davies (Gimli), Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Sean Bean (Boromir), and Ian McKellen (Gandalf).

About the Author

The Lord of the Rings trilogy was written by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (known widely as J. R. R. Tolkien) is known for his contribution to British literature and his reliance upon old Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon literature.  In 1892, Tolkien was born in the South African town of Bloemfontein, in an area known as the Orange Free State. His father, Arthur Tolkien, had left England in order to take up a senior position with a bank in the colony. When J.R.R. Tolkien was almost three years old, he returned to England with his mother and his younger brother.  After his father's death from rheumatic fever, the family made their home at Sarehole, near Birmingham. This beautiful rural area made a great impression on the young Ronald, and its effect can be seen in his later writings and his pictures.  After the death of his mother in 1904, Tolkien and his brothers were left in the care of Father Francis Morgan, a priest at the Birmingham Oratory. At King Edward's School, Ronald was taught Classics, Anglo-Saxon and Middle-English. He had great linguistic talent, and after studying old Welsh and Finnish, he started to invent his own "Elvish" languages.

1914 saw the outbreak of the First World War. Ronald was in his final year at Exeter College, Oxford: he graduated the following year with a First in English Language and Literature and at once took up his commission as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. Before embarking for France in June 1916, he married his childhood sweetheart Edith Bratt. Tolkien survived the Battle of the Somme, where two of his three closest friends were killed, but later that year he was struck down by trench fever and sent back to England.

The years after the Great War were devoted to his work as an academic: as Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, where he was soon to prove himself one of the finest philologists in the world. He had already started to write a great cycle of the myths and legends of Middle-Earth which was to become The Silmarillion. He and Edith had four children and it was for them that Tolkien first told the tale of The Hobbit, published in 1937 by Sir Stanley Unwin. The Hobbit proved to be so successful that Sir Stanley was soon asking for a sequel: but it was not until 1954, when Tolkien was approaching retirement, that he the first volume of his great masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, was published, and its terrific success took him by surprise. After retirement from Oxford, in 1956, Ronald and Edith moved to Bournemouth but when Edith died in 1971, Ronald returned to Oxford. He died after a brief illness on 2nd September 1973, leaving his great mythological work, The Silmarillion, to be edited for publication by his son, Christopher.

A sampling of LotR illustrations: 

_{Galadriel's Mirror, by David Wyatt}

_{Hobbiton by Roger Garland}

_{The Hobbits hiding from the dark rider by John Howe}

_{Frodo and Gollum by Alan Lee}

Lord of the Rings & Tolkien related links:

• Lord of the Rings Fansite
• Play Lord of the Rings
• Tolkien Movies
• Star of the North Fanzine - A publication produced by Pacific Northwest Tolkien fans, for Tolkien fans.
• www.lordoftherings.net - The Official LOTR movie website 
• Visit Tolkientown  
• The Ringbearer
• Heren Istarion Tolkien Society New York
• Taruithorn -- The Oxford Tolkien Society
• The Tolkien Society UK
• Find out what your Elvish name is with the Elvish Name Generator!
• Find out what your Hobbit name is with the Hobbit Name Generator